The Kerala Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) is in the process of conducting a feasibility study for setting up the proposed Pharmaceutical cluster in the State. The report will be ready in two months time.

The study has just been started and it will look into the various aspects of setting up a pharma cluster in Kerala. The feasibility report is supposed to be submitted to the government along with other documents necessary for the setting up the cluster.

"We have just started the feasibility study for starting the cluster. It will take at least two months for it to be completed. All the aspects connected with the setting up of the pharma cluster will be studied in detail and the final report will be submitted to the government along with the other required documents," said, K P Purushothaman, secretary of the Kerala PMA.

Motivated by the Tamil Nadu PMA's initiative to set up a pharmaceutical cluster in Tamil Nadu, the Kerala PMA had also taken a similar decision. For this purpose the Kerala PMA has sought the help of Tamil Nadu PMA.

The Kerala PMA is initially planning to set up a common testing lab after which gradually a common warehousing facility, raw material procurement and marketing wings would be mooted. The investment into the project would be around Rs one crore. The location where the cluster would be set up has not been decided yet.

"We are a small association as there are not many companies in Kerala; hence the investment is also small. In case the cluster is set up there will be a lot of benefit for the companies here as the money they spend on testing, warehousing, raw material procurement would be lessened. Besides there are chances that we can get government funding easily," said Purushothaman.

As Pharmabiz had reported earlier, the proposal for setting up the cluster has been forwarded to the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and the Industry Department of the State government.